Ars reports on the debate over whether creation is viable as science.

PETERSBURG, KENTUCKY—A brightly lit auditorium was packed with young adults wearing bow-ties, young-Earth creationists, and a gaggle of media there to maybe see sparks fly. The sparks could have been generated by Ken Ham, president/CEO of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, and Bill Nye the Science Guy, but instead, they mostly talked past each other for two-and-a-half hours on a snowy Kentucky night. The topic was one near and dear to both debate participants: the nature of acceptable scientific discourse. More specifically, they attempted to answer the question “is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”

Ham and Nye both led off with short, five-minute statements followed by 30-minute presentations punctuated by PowerPoint slides, video clips, and graphics intended to buttress their cases. Unsurprisingly, Ham’s starting point was Genesis, and he kept coming back to the assertion that God’s word as revealed in the first two chapters of Genesis is the definitive authority. All scientific inquiry should therefore begin with and proceed from there.

To make the case that science and creationism were compatible, he showed short video clips of scientists from around the world who believed in a literal six days of creation. "People are going to see what we really believe tonight," Ham promised. "I believe science has been hijacked by secularists" who seem to indoctrinate folks in the "religion of naturalism."

Nye countered with arguments from the fossil record, ice cores taken from Greenland, and tree rings to demonstrate that a literal reading of Genesis is unable to account for many scientific discoveries. Given that some of the core samples show over 680,000 annual progressions through the four seasons, Nye pointed that we'd have to experience well over a hundred winter-summer cycles every year to account for that number. "Wouldn't someone have noticed that?" he asked.

Ken Ham argues for two types of science: "observational" and "historical."

Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica

One of the points of contention throughout the debate was the term "science." Ham made the distinction between "historical science" and "observed science." The former relates to things that happened in the past, things that cannot be directly observed. In contrast, observed science is the present, that which can be tested, observed, and repeated. Nye rejected those distinctions. He kept returning to the point that there is only one kind of science, and it's all observational. "On CSI, there is no distinction between observational and experimental science."

How does one deal with the existence of the Grand Canyon and the layers of sediment and fossils? For Ham, we can't really know for sure, since we weren't there to observe what happened. "None of us saw the sandstone being laid down." During his presentation, Nye countered Ham by pointing out that, if the young earth creation arguments were correct, we'd see "churning and bubbling and writhing" in the Grand Canyon fossil record. "You never, ever, find a higher animal mixed in with a lower one," he says. "You never find a lower one trying to swim its way to the higher one."

After the 30-minute presentations, both participants were given five minutes for rebuttals and counter-rebuttals. During that time, both Ham and Nye attempted to poke holes in the other's arguments. For Ham, that meant being critical of various dating methods used by scientists. Other than the Bible, "there is no accurate dating method," Ham argued emphatically. "None." Nye again focused on Ham's distinction between "historical" and "observable" science, a distinction that does not exist for anyone other than "Ken Ham and his followers." He also repeatedly challenged Ham to offer some examples of predictive science based on young-Earth creation.

Some of the most interesting exchanges came during the Q&A session. Moderator Tom Foreman of CNN had a list of audience-submitted questions directed at either Nye or Ham, with the other given a chance to respond. When asked about what existed before the Big Bang, Nye began his answer with "I don't know."

"This is the great mystery—you've hit the nail on the head," he replied passionately. "What was before the Big Bang? This is what drives us, this is what we want to know. Let's keep looking, let's keep searching."

For Ham, the answer is simple. "There's a book out there that tells us where matter came from," he explained. "It's the only thing that makes logical sense."

Both Ham and Nye made a case for science education in the public schools, but, as one might expect, they each came at it from a different perspective. Ham wants creation science to be a part of the curriculum in part because it encourages critical thinking. For Nye, the US needs to embrace science in the curriculum in order to be competitive. "If we stop driving forward, looking for the next answer, we in the United States will be out-competed by other countries, other economies."

The debate ended as it began, with the two adversaries shaking hands and then walking off the dais. Were hearts touched and minds changed? Probably not. But two men with starkly different beliefs and viewpoints made their case stridently and respectfully before a rapt, well-behaved audience. Today, that counts for something.

Ken Ham's organization later posted video of the debate to YouTube.

Stay tuned for an in-depth feature on the debate and its historical antecedents. We're also going to head over to the Creation Museum on Wednesday morning to take in the sights.

Eric Bangeman
Eric has been using personal computers since 1980 and writing about them at Ars Technica since 2003, where he currently serves as Managing Editor. Twitter@ericbangeman

727 Reader Comments

I watched it live, Ken Ham clearly had no real idea what he was talking about, but had memorized some talking points that he kept repeating over and over again. I loved his bit about how on the ark there weren't two of every species, there were two of every "kind" from which other species came, but not by evolution. I really wanted the moderator to ask how a literal reading of the Bible explains the firmament, described as a physical dome over the planet to which the stars are affixed, now that we've actually been to space.

While I find it nice that people are actually willing to debate about such things without involving fistfights, Mr. Ken Ham is clearly delusional.

No scientifically approved method of recording age? What happened to carbon dating? I feel sad for children who would be brought up by people such as Mr. Ham. The world is more or less moving forward, yet some choose to stand still.

Edit:A written record believed to be over 6,500 years old and a 9,000 year old flute. Clearly, God forgot to destroy the Chinese with his flood.

The tickets for this event were sold out quickly. The event was being held at the Creation Museum. That's tens of thousands of dollars in their pockets, to be used only in lying to children about science and keeping the power bill for their animatronic dinosaurs paid up.

Yeah, I also don't think this was a good idea. Not only did he gain money and attention for these clueless folks, but he also helped foster the widespread but bogus idea that debate = science. Public debating has about as much to do with science as putting on an iron man halloween costume has to do with robotics.

Debates are about "winning", science is about discovering the truth. The goal is for all parties to gain knowledge, not for one party to win over the other. And especially pernicious, this kind of debate encourages the fallacy that unqualified onlookers are capable of judging a scientific debate at all in the first place. It's the old 'Merica fallacy that everyone's opinion is of equal value: "I jess don't bleev ma ancestors were monkies- it jess don' seem right".

And finally, the result encourages the belief that scientific debates end in all parties walking away and continuing to say the exact same things they said before it, like public debates always do. Scientific debates have consequences and outcomes; public debates are generally consequence-free showcases where everyone goes back to their tribe afterwards, and nothing changes.

The funniest thing for me is that I live in a country where 70% of the population claims to be christian (though only 20% of those practice the faith actively, the rest are pretty lax and behave more like theists) and yet they would all laugh at someone denying evolution, dinosaurs or science in general.

I really wanted the moderator to ask how a literal reading of the Bible explains the firmament, described as a physical dome over the planet to which the stars are affixed, now that we've actually been to space.

Easy. Evolutionists collaborated with Communists and neo-Nazis to fake the moon landing and all the robotic expeditions that occurred in the past half-century. The Mars photos from Curiosity? Taken in a secret bunker under the White House.

What a terrible bore this Bill Nye was.And how amateurish was his presentation and lame his jokes. I thought he was supposed to be quite the comedian, but he really didn't seem to be comfortable in this debate role. The other guy's presentation had interviews, graphics, animations, the whole shebang. And the seven Cs of creation, genius! So pretty, even if totally idiotic, no wonder there are still people believing in creationism.

Nye also didn't seem to be very competent on the subject, like he had no clue how the age of the Earth was estimated but would still try mumbling non-answers. He also apparently did not know anything about the 45,000 year old piece of wood encased in the 45 million year old block of basalt, when all of 10 seconds of googling could tell that the wood was dated with carbon-14 (totally unsuitable for such old fossils) and the basalt with potassium-argon.

He couldn't even point out one among the thousands of new traits that did not exist yesterday and evolved today, like Roundup-resistant weeds, antibiotic-resistant organisms, etc.

Edit: And why didn't Ars announce the debate in its home page or the Science home page? That's a shame, many Ars readers probably missed it. I think they said it would be available for a week for free online. There's their chance.

What's interesting is at the Pentacostal Christian college I went to during the 90's, the Old Testament teacher pointed out that the creation narrative in Genesis is - in the original language - poetry, and not necessarily to be taken literally. Something lost in the English translations. I'd be curious to see how many actual theologians actually believe Ham's point of view. I'm pretty sure my teachers (at least for the bible classes) didn't.

You don't need a trained scientist to poke away at the notion that creationism is a "viable model of origins" when there are two mutually-contradictory origin stories in Bible itself. And did Ham really imply that the Bible can be used as an accurate dating method? Wasn't that just something invented a couple hundred years ago by a guy guesstimating the ages of the various biblical patriarchs?

I definitely agree the "debate" was not really much of one. Both really did seem to mainly ignore one another to get out their own talking points. From what I saw, Bill Nye's purpose for participating in the debate was a way to get people to back funding science education programs...he seemed to keep going back to that point over and over, a worthy goal to be certain...but not really "debating" the other side.

As for Ken Ham, his purpose seemed less to do with debating creationism vs. evolution and more to do with re-defining what the "mainstream" sees as science. He seemed to want to show that believing in a literal translation of the Bible wasn't a bad thing and you could still be a part of the scientific community. Once again, a noble goal for those backing his point-of-view...but not necessarily "debating" the other side.

In the end, both sides got publicity and (more than likely) funding to live on for another day. The media circus was in full swing and both sides will benefit from the coverage. Although I don't approve of their methods, it's hard to argue with results...the whole affair has been covered extensively and could only raise awareness of the issue in the long run.

He also apparently did not know anything about the 45,000 year old piece of wood encased in the 45 million year old block of basalt, when all of 10 seconds of googling could tell that the wood was dated with carbon-14 (totally unsuitable for such old fossils) and the basalt with potassium-argon.

I'm pretty sure he didn't have access to Google while debating. Creationists have an endless number of supposed discrepancies. There's no way he could have been prepared for them all.

He also apparently did not know anything about the 45,000 year old piece of wood encased in the 45 million year old block of basalt, when all of 10 seconds of googling could tell that the wood was dated with carbon-14 (totally unsuitable for such old fossils) and the basalt with potassium-argon.

I'm pretty sure he didn't have access to Google while debating. Creationists have an endless number of supposed discrepancies. There's no way he could have been prepared for them all.

And, well, filter bubbles would have affected which search results he would've seen.

What a terrible bore this Bill Nye was.And how amateurish was his presentation and lame his jokes. I thought he was supposed to be quite the comedian, but he really didn't seem to be comfortable in this debate role. The other guy's presentation had interviews, graphics, animations, the whole shebang. And the seven Cs of creation, genius! So pretty, even if totally idiotic, no wonder there are still people believing in creationism.

Nye also didn't seem to be very competent on the subject, like he had no clue how the age of the Earth was estimated but would still try mumbling non-answers. He also apparently did not know anything about the 45,000 year old piece of wood encased in the 45 million year old block of basalt, when all of 10 seconds of googling could tell that the wood was dated with carbon-14 (totally unsuitable for such old fossils) and the basalt with potassium-argon.

He couldn't even point out one among the thousands of new traits that did not exist yesterday and evolved today, like Roundup-resistant weeds, antibiotic-resistant organisms, etc.

Edit: And why didn't Ars announce the debate in its home page or the Science home page? That's a shame, many Ars readers probably missed it. I think they said it would be available for a week for free online. There's their chance.

Bill Nye has always made kind of lame jokes. It's kind of his thing. And he has a Master's Degree in engineering, so realistically, his only real qualification to debate on the subject is that he has an understanding of the scientific method. Which, really, is all that's necessary to debunk Creationist bullshit.

As for the basalt example given, yes, it would have been nice if he had addressed it directly, but he may not have had specific knowledge of that case, and didn't want to make things up. It's not like he had an opportunity to run a search on the subject live on camera. Neither side addressed the other's points, though, in keeping with the tradition of American presidential debates.

Let's be realistic here: the vast majority of Christians don't believe in Young Earth Creationism. If you want to go further, Catholicism officially supports Evolution. Many Christians of all varieties are smart enough to leave science to scientists, and religion to the church. I think that the proportion of Christians that actually believe that Noah's Ark (whether it literally or metaphorically existed) carried literally every single species on the planet is probably less than 0.01%.

Half of the time Ken Ham was using the same points that he uses to debate Christian old-earth creationists. I happen to agree with him that there are compatibility issues with the Bible and old-earth creationism, but that's not really relevant when debating Bill Nye.

If the person you are debating believes in the literal truth of the Bible, and doesn't acknowledge the scientific method, then you really can't debate science.

It's pointless. It's like debating public policy with an anarchist.

If the opposing party is hostile to the basic principles of the scientific method, then there can be no actual debate over science.

On the other hand, uninformed observers may very well be swayed by the simplicity of the creationist's arguments. It's much easier to create a simple, attractive argument when you don't have to ground it in the messy complexities of reality.

I could not believe that someone so full of ignorance as Mr. Ham would attempt a debate. A few things stood out for me:

- Religious intolerance on Mr. Ham's part. What about all those people who don't happen to accept "the good" book as the source of all, albeit vague, wisdom? Bill Nye had a couple of great counter points, asking if the "fish are sinners" (because they get diseases) and how someone can tell a perfect stranger that they are defective in some way. (I'm paraphrasing that last bit.)

- Mr. Ham attempting to re-frame the debate into a semantic argument of already established terms (Science, etc.)

- Mr. Ham constantly dismissed historical evidence on the basis that no one was there to witness it. I wish Mr. Nye would have responded that no one was there to witness the creation of the Earth 6000 years ago, nor the Ark and the flood.

It seems to me that for the most part, Mr. Ham clings to his beliefs due to his own fear of death, (topic of death came up a couple of times during the debate) and is hellbent on making others agree to his beliefs. Thank god for the wisdom of framers who established separation of church and state, doing their best to make sure those like Mr. Ham can not use powers of government to force the rest of us to follow their beliefs.

All these folks pushing for more religion in schools, what will they say when (for example) Muslims start making equal demands? Will they be as open to their point of view?

Let's be realistic here: the vast majority of Christians don't believe in Young Earth Creationism. If you want to go further, Catholicism officially supports Evolution. Many Christians of all varieties are smart enough to leave science to scientists, and religion to the church. I think that the proportion of Christians that actually believe that Noah's Ark (whether it literally or metaphorically existed) carried literally every single species on the planet is probably less than 0.01%.

The broken bullhorn. That 0.01% are the ones screaming the loudest and the ones the world tends to hear the most. Often because of their position in society, like this kook tonight, a lot of people listen and take them seriously. Some people trust authority figures rather than rely on facts to help them reach their own conclusions. The former is, after all, easier for the brain to process, or whatever semblance there of they posses.

I could not believe that someone so full of ignorance as Mr. Ham would attempt a debate. A few things stood out for me:

- Religious intolerance on Mr. Ham's part. What about all those people who don't happen to accept "the good" book as the source of all, albeit vague, wisdom? Bill Nye had a couple of great counter points, asking if the "fish are sinners" (because they get diseases) and how someone can tell a perfect stranger that they are defective in some way. (I'm paraphrasing that last bit.)

- Mr. Ham attempting to re-frame the debate into a semantic argument of already established terms (Science, etc.)

- Mr. Ham constantly dismissed historical evidence on the basis that no one was there to witness it. I wish Mr. Nye would have responded that no one was there to witness the creation of the Earth 6000 years ago, nor the Ark and the flood.

It seems to me that for the most part, Mr. Ham clings to his beliefs due to his own fear of death, (topic of death came up a couple of times during the debate) and is hellbent on making others agree to his beliefs. Thank god for the wisdom of framers who established separation of church and state, doing their best to make sure those like Mr. Ham can not use powers of government to force the rest of us to follow their beliefs.

All these folks pushing for more religion in schools, what will they say when (for example) Muslims start making equal demands? Will they be as open to their point of view?

Of course not, equal rights means only teaching the right religion. Duh.

After hearing Historical Science, I decided to look it up and I was redirected to the Wikipedia page titled history. So yes, Mr. Ham is right. Historical Science and Observed Science, are different. In fact they do teach Historical Science at schools, it's known as History! Would you look at that?

He also apparently did not know anything about the 45,000 year old piece of wood encased in the 45 million year old block of basalt, when all of 10 seconds of googling could tell that the wood was dated with carbon-14 (totally unsuitable for such old fossils) and the basalt with potassium-argon.

I'm pretty sure he didn't have access to Google while debating. Creationists have an endless number of supposed discrepancies. There's no way he could have been prepared for them all.

I don't know, he had his own laptop, so he could. More to the point, I would not imagine participating in such a debate without a whole team of advisors out there doing this kind of research and providing hints on how to reply to these arguments, if he chooses to use them. I guess that's not how it works here.

Well, that's not how this debate worked. Both had laptops, but only to display their own pre made images. Neither had a team of people to give them pointers during the debate. That's par for the course by most traditional debating rules.

Let's be realistic here: the vast majority of Christians don't believe in Young Earth Creationism. If you want to go further, Catholicism officially supports Evolution. Many Christians of all varieties are smart enough to leave science to scientists, and religion to the church. I think that the proportion of Christians that actually believe that Noah's Ark (whether it literally or metaphorically existed) carried literally every single species on the planet is probably less than 0.01%.

The broken bullhorn. That 0.01% are the ones screaming the loudest and the ones the world tends to hear the most. Often because of their position in society, like this cook tonight, a lot of people listen and take them seriously. Some people trust authority figures rather than rely on facts to help them reach their own conclusions. The former is, after all, easier for the brain to process, or whatever semblance there of they posses.

In other words Ken Ham is doing a disservice to creative thinking by making conclusions formatted in pretty PowerPoints for people to take in as truth?

While I find it nice that people are actually willing to debate about such things without involving fistfights, Mr. Ken Ham is clearly delusional.

No scientifically approved method of recording age? What happened to carbon dating? I feel sad for children who would be brought up by people such as Mr. Ham. The world is more or less moving forward, yet some choose to stand still.

Edit:A written record believed to be over 6,500 years old and a 9,000 year old flute. Clearly, God forgot to destroy the Chinese with his flood.

I actually had a chemistry teacher in high school who didn't believe in carbon dating, because "you would have to assume carbon behaved in the same way 10,000 years ago as it does today." Yeah. She also told me I would never go to college, so it was with particular pleasure I showed her a $5,000 check I got from Toshiba for winning a science contest a year later - on my way to a good college. Creationists are, like all super-religious folks, experts at suspending reality for any given amount of time they find convenient. It doesn't mean the rest of the world will.

All these folks pushing for more religion in schools, what will they say when (for example) Muslims start making equal demands? Will they be as open to their point of view?

Of course not because <insert more irrational bullshit> as long as they never admit their demands are one sided.

They know. They know and that makes them hypocrites, and they know that too. At least people at the top like this guy. Their followers are too distracted to notice. They must be wretched human beings from all the hypocrisy.

While I find it nice that people are actually willing to debate about such things without involving fistfights, Mr. Ken Ham is clearly delusional.

No scientifically approved method of recording age? What happened to carbon dating? I feel sad for children who would be brought up by people such as Mr. Ham. The world is more or less moving forward, yet some choose to stand still.

Edit:A written record believed to be over 6,500 years old and a 9,000 year old flute. Clearly, God forgot to destroy the Chinese with his flood.

I actually had a chemistry teacher in high school who didn't believe in carbon dating, because "you would have to assume carbon behaved in the same way 10,000 years ago as it does today." Yeah. She also told me I would never go to college, so it was with particular pleasure I showed her a $5,000 check I got from Toshiba for winning a science contest a year later - on my way to a good college. Creationists are, like all super-religious folks, experts at suspending reality for any given amount of time they find convenient. It doesn't mean the rest of the world will.

I was told in a Seventh Day Adventist school that carbon dating is unreliable for any dates before the flood because during the flood everything was covered in salt water. And evidently salt water makes carbon-14 decay differently.

While I find it nice that people are actually willing to debate about such things without involving fistfights, Mr. Ken Ham is clearly delusional.

No scientifically approved method of recording age? What happened to carbon dating? I feel sad for children who would be brought up by people such as Mr. Ham. The world is more or less moving forward, yet some choose to stand still.

Edit:A written record believed to be over 6,500 years old and a 9,000 year old flute. Clearly, God forgot to destroy the Chinese with his flood.

I actually had a chemistry teacher in high school who didn't believe in carbon dating, because "you would have to assume carbon behaved in the same way 10,000 years ago as it does today." Yeah. She also told me I would never go to college, so it was with particular pleasure I showed her a $5,000 check I got from Toshiba for winning a science contest a year later - on my way to a good college. Creationists are, like all super-religious folks, experts at suspending reality for any given amount of time they find convenient. It doesn't mean the rest of the world will.

I was told by a rather nice and venerable doctor that dinosaurs coexisted with humans before the flood! They were wiped out because they couldn't fit inside the Ark...And yes, he was completely sincere when he said this.

But the world is indeed only 6000 years old. And it's because earth 1.0 went down in flames when the server farm it was running on had a server fire. So god had to revert to his last snapshot which was 6000 years ago now. Now obviously god had seen everything that had happened thus far in the original, and it being a long running simulation, was going to turn out exactly the same way again, so he decided to meddle and take advantage of her knowledge of the outcomes to make prophecies that would impress the inmates. This also explains why they dried up, as we reached the end of the original simulation about 2000 years ago.

It's been a while since I picked up the Bible, but isn't there a major flaw in the historical/observed science distinction in that God created man after he did all the other stuff? If that is indeed how it went, then the portion of the Bible that a creationist would have you rely on for their theory of creation is all historical science, and therefore is not reliable. If no one was around to observe it, then they shouldn't believe their own book, by their own logic (unless I'm completely misunderstanding the argument).

I don't know why they insist on pushing the theory of truth in the Bible when so much of it is incompatible with what we have learned in the years since it was written. People didn't know much back then, and they were taken by what was most likely a con job with good intention. There is certainly a lot of negative stuff in there that they choose to overlook, and a lot of stuff that it's really curious to overlook, like why we would stop living for hundreds of years, or why God would stop appearing and talking to us when he did it so often in the past. Regardless of the fantastical nature of what the Bible says, my experience tells me that it's more than .01% who have believe it is a literal history. I have personally met two people who were well educated attorneys and believed. One insisted that angels were real and had routinely visited earth, and the other thought that dinosaurs and modern humans were on the earth at the same time, roughly 6,000 years ago -- I guess that was the only way to reconcile the understanding that dinosaurs had existed with the understanding that we had not evolved, but had been placed here when the world came into existence (~6,000 years ago).

The hardest part for me to understand isn't the ignorance though, it's how so many of the people who claim to be faithful Christians refuse to follow any of the parts about loving neighbors, helping out their fellow man, eschewing greed, not casting stones, etc. I just can't wrap my mind around it. We might be better off if we allowed the creation of more new religions; that way we can have one where people can smoke marijuana legally as a ritual, another one where people can believe they are going to Disney World when they die, and even one where you can secure your place in the magical hereafter by owning as many guns as you can afford. At least we wouldn't be labeling all these ignorant people as Judeo-Christian evangelicals and we could delineate between the various levels of ignorance.

But the world is indeed only 6000 years old. And it's because earth 1.0 went down in flames when the server farm it was running on had a server fire. So god had to revert to his last snapshot which was 6000 years ago now. Now obviously god had seen everything that had happened thus far in the original, and it being a long running simulation, was going to turn out exactly the same way again, so he decided to meddle and take advantage of her knowledge of the outcomes to make prophecies that would impress the inmates. This also explains why they dried up, as we reached the end of the original simulation about 2000 years ago.

That's too bad, think of the money he could have made if he'd had foreknowledge of the outcomes of horse races to give his followers. That'd make me convert.